In restaurants and food manufacturing facilities alike, your flooring must meet USDA standards to ensure the health and safety of your employees and customers. A simple way to accomplish this for a new or refurbished facility is to install a USDA-approved concrete floor coating.
Once this coating (which may be a specialized urethane or epoxy) has been installed, it will require proper care and maintenance in order to uphold the established standards.
Here’s a quick guide to keeping it in proper working order:
Make sure it’s properly installed
Many floor coatings require specific floor surface preparation before they’re applied—in the form of special cleaning and texturizing—in order to make sure they bond properly with the floor.
Without that initial step, the coating may start to blister, peel up, or otherwise fail, compromising the food-grade safety of the floor (besides wasting your flooring budget!).
That’s why it’s important to hire an experienced floor coating contractor who will do the job correctly the first time.
Clean Regularly
Depending on what type of facility you have, you will have to clean your floor coating to protect it from certain products and chemicals.
For instance, in a restaurant, oils, fats, dairy and sugar products all contain certain acids that can slowly eat away at an epoxy-based floor coating. To prevent this wear and tear (and to keep up with your health code), you will need to clean the floors regularly.
It’s also not a bad idea to have your floor degreased occasionally. Grease build-up can be difficult to get rid of with traditional cleaners, and it can damage your floor coating if it is left on there too long. Additionally, grease is slippery and can become a hazard for your employees.
Finding the right kind of cleaner is important, however. Food processing facilities can use harsh chemicals, cleaner and disinfectants that are made with industrial solvents. These solvents can actually eat away at your floor coating over time.
Ask your flooring installer which cleaners are most effective for your particular floor coating formula.
Address Issues as You Encounter Them
Though floor coatings are made to last for many years, accidents can happen or coatings can fail. If you see that your USDA-approved floor coating is cracking or peeling, call in your flooring professionals to address the issue. Not only can these issues be dangerous or in violation of any health codes, they can also be unsightly and drive customers away.
If problems are caught early on, it’s more likely that they can be contained and repaired. If damage goes unchecked for too long, however, a re-coating may be the only solution.
If you have a restaurant or food processing facility in the Southeast and are looking for a reliable floor coating contractor, contact CPC Floor Coatings. Our flooring experts will pay special attention to the unique needs of your facility and can offer a custom USDA-grade flooring solution customized for you.
